Da' Haps!

September 20th was mi madre's birthday. She is all of 54 years (you can do the math). We went to dinner on Saturday for her pre birthday dinner since her actual special day was filled with a 40+ mile bike ride with her girlfriends. So us folk settled for Saturday. We took the ferry over to her island and went to a steakhouse. Just what I needed leading up to the long workouts scheduled for Sunday and Monday. Food was good, the dessert was AMAZING! My mom is one special lady, she helps organize a ton of workouts on the Kitsap peninsula (they call themselves J.U.G.S. for Just Us Girls. She races and trains nearly as much as I do (added cleats to her cycling shoes this year), and somehow managed to raise me,okay, continues to raise me. I could not even imagine having an 11 year old right now, let alone an 11 year old daughter like me. Happy Birthday Mom!

( Mom at Danskin this year)

Bondi Band was featured at the Trek expo (think Danskin, but it is called Trek). Rebecca (owner) is prego and due any day so I worked the booth for her. If you have never heard of Bondi Band, you will soon, or check out the site. Here are some of her bands (fashion and cool max fabric for working out):

Other titles say:

"Tri Chick", "Fit Happens","I run so I can eat", "I run for beer", "shark bait", "cancer sucks", "Operation Shrink a Booty", etc. Fun stuff and widely popular to all the chicks racing.

Speaking of Cancer sucks. Today marks 14 years since my father passed. He had the crappy cancer, but won it over for 2.5 years, until it finally took him away. He was a huge support of me, especially in athletics. NEVER missed a swim meet or gymnastic meet, built me a balance beam and then a pool in our back yard (dug the thing with his own two hands!). He was a perfectionist (I didn't pick up on that trait). Dad was cool, he is missed.

Sunday was Cycle the Wave (benefiting Victims of Domestic Violence). An all girls cycling event in Issaquah (this is the one that mom got all her friends together, dolled themselves up in pink jerseys, and road their bikes-and later crashed them :() They have three different routes with some fun titles, except for the longest route. It is called the "Burly Girl" so the volunteers ask:

"What event are you doing?"
Me: Burly Girl (did I really just say that-calling myself that?)


Male volunteers on course: "Are you doing the sisters route or the girl power route?"
Me: ughh...the Burly Girl (Crap, do they know I am doing this twice- am I now the "grizzly girl")

Come on could they come up with something a little more, ughh, girly? Like super girl or wonder woman of such.

Definition of burly:
husky, able-bodied, athletic, beefcake, beefy, big, brawny, bruising, bulky, gorillalike, hefty, hulking, hulky, hunk, muscular, portly, powerful, stocky, stout, strapping, strong, sturdy, thickset, well-built.

Seriously lets go with beefcake next year.

The event was, despite the name, fun. I rode with Connie for the first 70ish miles and then she went on to complete her first century EVER. We had so much to talk about that the first 30 miles were easily forgotten about. Rain from the day before caused every slug to come out in all of Washington. Brown slugs, green slugs, you could only dodge so many of them. I look over at Connie's bike and it looks like a huge bug, until we realize it was slug guts! I got to do this last long ride and my longest ride EVER. The last 10 miles of each 60ish mile loop were brutal (took me 1:22 for the last 10 of each-hilly!)



(Yes, that is fuel all over the cat eye, not slug guts)

I have no photos of the ride because Mark was out supporting the TNM athletes at our local Kirkland Sprint triathlon and let me tell you this race is no joke! The mens field was STACKED with local pros Ben Collins, Dave Messenheimer, Chris Tremonte, and up and comer Rusty Pruden. My fellow coach Bridget Jones (yes that is her real name) took the victory for the women.

(Champ Bridget with the hubby and Zooey the new dog)


(Dave, Ben, and our boy Rusty)

Most excitingly Coach M's bro (that is Mark) raced his first tri. The super sprint, which is all the same except the swim was 1/4 of a mile. For starters he did a fantastic job...but his stories are what need the attention.

(Brother Paul and Coach M)

Night before race on phone with Mark:

M: "Pump your tires to 115 tonight, they will lose some air overnight and you will be fine".

P (Paul is bro's name): "What I just pumped them to 60 isn't that enough?"

M: "Okay, what fuel are you bringing?"

P: "Fuel?"

M: "Pack everything tonight in a back pack, including your wetsuit, you don't want to forget that."

P: "In a back pack? I thought I just put it all in a garbage bag."

M: "Meet me at my place at 5:30 am."

P: "Why 5:30 when my wave doesn't go off until 8?"

Post Race comments:

P: "I freaked out in the swim as soon as I got kicked, so bro, I turned over on my back, lifted my goggles up and did this (picture Paul swinging both arms simultaneously in a backstroke fashion). I started passing people like crazy. And then I didn't even have to sight (remember goggles are off), I would just watch the people's eyes behind me and make sure I was going straight that way." (I need to learn that style!)

On the run: "I was cramping in my calves and people started telling me not to stretch, I was like, heck no, I want to stretch my calves and I will!"

And of course Coach M credits himself for Paul's quick transition times, however, Paul credits it to the fact that he "rode" his bike out of transition with volunteers yelling "get off your bike". Oops!

Will he do it again....YES! It just brings back all the first timer stories.

Happy b-day wishes to my mom and congrats to Paul on his first (of many to come) triathlon!